How tomatoes are grown and harvested
Fresh tomatoes get picked by hand four to six times a season, while a canning harvester cuts the whole vine.
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The short version
Commercial tomatoes start in a greenhouse, then go out as seedlings into raised beds under plastic mulch with drip irrigation. Growers weave twine between stakes to hold fresh-market plants up, and crews pick them by hand several times, often at the mature green stage. Canning crops meet a machine that cuts the whole vine and sorts the fruit with sensors.
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Start seedlings under glass
Seed goes into cell trays in a greenhouse, and the plants stay there for 42 to 56 days. Container-grown seedlings carry their growing medium out with their roots, so they take the move outdoors with less shock.
42 to 56 days in the greenhouse
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Plant into mulched beds
Once soil 3 inches down reaches 60 °F, a transplanter sets the seedlings into raised beds covered in red or black plastic. Drip lines deliver water and fertilizer for the rest of the season.
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Weave twine between stakes
Fresh-market plants need holding up off the ground. Stakes of wood, 4 to 4.5 feet tall, go in between every second plant, and twine runs along both sides of the row, normally at three heights.
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Hand-pick the fresh crop
Crews work through a field four to six times a season. Wholesale fruit comes off at the mature green to breaker stage so it can survive shipping, and some of it is ripened later with ethylene gas. Buckets get tipped into bins holding 800 to 1,200 pounds, which ride to a packinghouse.
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Machine-cut the canning crop
For canning, a machine cuts the entire vine and uses sensors to split ripe fruit from the rest of the plant. What is left returns to the farm as green manure or gets grazed by livestock.
Worth repeating
- Modern varieties were bred to ripen uniformly red, and that trait cut sugar in the ripe fruit by 10 to 15%.
- A tomato called Flavr Savr became the first genetically modified food on sale.
- A fall of just over 6 inches onto something hard can bruise a tomato inside, with nothing to see on the skin.
Where it comes from
- China36% of world output
- Indiasecondary producer
- Turkeysecondary producer
- United Statessecondary producer
2023, share of the 192 million tonnes of tomatoes produced worldwide.
Where it goes next
Tomatoes feeds 4 lines directly.
Keep walking
Sources
- Tomato
- Tomato Production, Penn State Extension
- Commercial Tomato Production Handbook, University of Georgia Extension
Cite this page: "How tomatoes are grown and harvested." Assembly Line, 2026-11-03. https://assemblyline.org/make/tomatoes